a trivet and a candle

Distinctly cold today. Slept most of the way on the train up to Birmingham. The train being delayed resulted in my arriving on the steps of the NHSIA building at the same time as a coworker, which was unexpectedly serendipitous. (She added to my pile of moving-house presents, with a scented candle and a trivet.) The meeting itself was unexceptional, but at least now I have a contact to present my expenses to directly.

It's not snowing outside, but I wish to state that it is cold. Cold cold cold cold cold.

It's astonishing how many crime stories the mobile phone torpedoes -- and not even Golden Age stuff, but stories from the eighties, even. Nowadays we expect most professionals to carry a mobile phone. Bang go all the chases, the lack of communication, the miscommunications . . . alas, alas.

---

Beloved Dust

And you as well must die, beloved dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead,
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
This body of flame and steel, before the gust
Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,
Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead
Than the first leaf that fall, --- this wonder fled.
Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.

Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.
In spite of all my love, you will arise
Upon that day and wander down the air
Obscurely as the unattended flower,
It mattering not how beautiful you were,
Or how beloved above all else that dies.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay